Please answer all questions in full sentences. 1. In the late 1920s The Chicago jazz scene begins to fade. Which city becomes the focal point for nightclub work, music publishing, radio, record

Prohibition ends -1933 Fletcher Henderson Early Swing -The Beginnings of the Swing Era By the late 1920s Chicago’s jazz scene was starting to show signs of weakness. There were a number of factors at work. Perhaps the biggest reason was New York City, 1,000 miles to the east. New York was becoming the center of everything. There were hundreds of job opportunities in nightclubs, theaters, dance halls and private engagements. Also, this is where the music publishing industry and the newly burgeoning radio and recording industries were located . New York was happening! Chicago was in the midst of a crackdown on organized crime. Police raids on speakeasies and internal gang violence against each other made the club scene dangerous for musicians and patrons alike. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, in 1929, had solidified support for a crackdown. By 1931 Al Capone was sent to prison and Mayor “Big Bill” Thompson was defeated in a reelection bid. In 1933 prohibition was repealed and in 1934 John Dillinger was killed. Octobe r 1929 marked the crash of the stock market and the beginning of the Great Depression. The era of loose morals, the cheap thrill of speakeasies, and endless optimism was over. When jazz fans talk about the “swing era” they are us ually talking about the period of approximately 1935 to 1945. This was a period in history when jazz music (swing) was also America’s popular music. It was also a period in which America’s teenagers and young adults strongly influenced popular tastes and e xerted considerable financial power with their buying of records and all things related to the swing bands. Actually, the swing band style had been developing for over ten years before that 1935 date . Fletcher Henderson was running a young, energetic, ever growing band as early as 1924. A young Louis Armstrong was in his band for fourteen months through that period. His influence on the New York dance band scene was undeniable. Longer solos, a stronger beat, more blues influences and that irresistible rhyth mic drive of swing were all a result of Louis Armstrong’s short stay in New York. These types of bands were often described as “hot” bands. Paul Whiteman The “sweet” hotel bands of leaders like Paul Whiteman (actually a good friend of Fletcher Henderson) played a much more tame style of dance music . Many of the “sweet” band leaders and musicians admired the more energetic and exciting “hot” bands but the audiences at the hotel ballroom and “society” gigs they played were not quite ready for the unrestrained power of new big band swing sound. Here is a good article and web page on early swing music. Read the article and poke aro und the site a little. There are a lot of fun, original articles from the 1930s with advertising and great pictures.